Cancel the “ Cancel Culture” Being Encouraged by Many of Our Schools

By Joe Renfro, Ed.D.

We need to stand up and seek to cancel the “Cancel Culture” ideology that is present today in our society, which has to a great extent been spawned from our educational systems.  In a society there is no way that culture itself can be canceled, but it certainly can be changed. This is what those of the radical left are seeking. This is something not just recently developing, but it something that has been in process over the past hundred or years.

The mob or the revolutionaries have sought to cancel the admiration such great American heroes like George Washington and Abraham Lincoln in their cities. Schools are being renamed to erase the great leaders of history. Statues are being torn down, flags burned, while law enforcement looks on and does nothing. The American heroes who we were taught to give high acclaim are under continual assault and socialism in America is growing by leaps and bounds. The woke groups are working to destroy our culture and establish a culture which many of us see being very destructive.

Why have socialist ideas again developed such a strong appeal? British economist Kristian Niemietz provides an answer in his book Socialism. The Failed Idea That Never Dies. He goes on to elaborate about it later on, writing:

That every socialist experiment has gone through three distinct phases. During the first phase, intellectuals around the world are enthusiastic and praise the system to the heavens. This honeymoon phase is always followed by a second phase of disillusionment: intellectuals still endorse the system and its “achievements,” but their tone becomes angrier and more defensive. They grudgingly admit that the system has shortcomings but try to blame these on capitalist saboteurs, foreign forces, or boycotts by U.S. imperialists. Finally, in the third phase, intellectuals seek to deny that the system was ever truly a form of socialism at all.

In an article entitled “China Seeks to Influence American Education” by Rafael Valera, El American, January 12, 2021 he says that:

The goal is to secretly infiltrate and influence the internal institutions of a country in favor of the Communist Party of China…The specific schools it wants to shape are the K-12, that is, kindergarten through 12th grade (five to eighteen years old). In this sense, direct efforts from the Chinese Communist Party have been made to achieve this goal…They seek to make global education a “classroom priority” for school districts.  But the China mission in our schools is as well to the higher education, for China’s Heavy Influence Over U.S. Higher Education System – American Announcement May 27, 2020 brought out that The Department of Education has told House Republicans that they have uncovered over 6 billion dollars in unreported foreign donations.

These leftist intellectuals who have been trained in our universities, colleges, and even now in our public schools are calling for a change in culture, really basically because they reject the Judeo-Christian world views, individual person responsibility basic to Christianity that teaches “Thou shall not covet (what others have.)” and “If a person won’t work don’t let him eat.” They want socialism in which they feel they themselves are to be the guardians to are able to implement it. Change the culture where they can manage it, they basically what they say!

Culture sets the basic thinking that helps us to differentiate one society from the other. It is manifest in society as a community of people, residing in a specific area, sharing common, basic historical value system.  It  unites the social structure and enables the society to set up the socio-political-spiritual framework basic to the formation of the society.

There are two ideologies that at present are very much behind the movements seeking to change our Judeo-Christian culture that is basic to the formation of this land, and under the banner of “CHANGE”  are seeking to undermine the foundations basic to our way of life.  Communism and Islam are the two most global ideologies against the thinking of Christianity and Democracy. However, if this foundation that developed the Western world is removed, revolutionary cultural change will be reached. These two ideologies are Communism and Islam that are basic to this process at present and neither cultivates what can be called a “democracy.”  Notice that in the nations that have strong commitments to either ideology, Communism, or Islam, that all are basically anti-Christian and not friendly to the Jews.

It has been observed that: “The interaction between communism and Islam can be found in three areas: theories of human society, competing social structures, and political organizations, which claim the theories and structures as their operational goals. In addition to such immediate concerns, there is a more complex, historical narrative encompassing many institutions and social structures called both Communist and Muslim.”  (A History of Communism & Islam: A Marriage of Convenience – Muslim World Today, July 3, 2017)

These ideologies might seem to be very different, since one claims to be religious, which it is, but is really just as much political as the goal of Islam is the establishment of the Islamic state, and the other ruled by a small portion of the society – those who are esteemed to be the elite or the Communist Party itself. Faith has been defined as “ultimate commitment,” and in Communism, their body political is basic. It is a religion made for atheists, but one that germinates totalitarianism just like Islamic thinking. 

Totalitarianism is very much evident in the cultures of both in their understanding of human society, in the societies themselves, and in their political lives.   Both are radical ideologies and each call for revolution to conquer ideologies that are not under their domain. It has been observed that:

Communism and the radical Islamist vision of the Islamic State both work in opposition to the natural God-given law that is the foundation of Western Civilization and the only true bulwark of human freedom. As a consequence, Communism and the Islamic State deny freedom of speech and freedom of conscience and violate the right to life itself.

Communism and the radical Islamist vision of the Islamic State both work in opposition   to the natural God-given law that is the foundation of Western Civilization and the only true bulwark of human freedom. As a consequence, Communism and the Islamic State deny freedom of speech and freedom of conscience and violate the right to life itself.

Communism and the radical Islamist vision of the Islamic State both work in opposition   to the natural God-given law that is the foundation of Western Civilization. (www.cnsnews.com/commentary/terence-p-jerrrey.  Jan. 14, 2015)

Islam has its basis from revelation with the Angel Gabriel speaking to Mohamed, and Communism has its basis from the Marxian-Engels thinking that looks to what is called “dialectical materialism,” a philosophy of science, history, and nature that developed in Europe in the later part of the 19th Century. It is well known that Marx was very anti-religious, as evidenced by this statement from his writing in an article, “A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right” which appeared in the Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher, as published in Paris in February 1844.  Marx, himself, did not use the term “dialectical materialism,” but Engels developed it from their common beliefs.  However, in response to Hegel’s intellectual support of Christianity as the climax of all religion, which Marx opposed he wrote this critique.

Marx looked to reason, a distorted one, supposedly to disprove belief in God, where Islamic thinking looks to its support to revelation for support, as they believe God spoke through the Angel Gabriel to Mohamed who spoke to writers who copied what he said and was declared it to be the revelation from God.  Mohamed did not write the Koran, for he could neither read or write. With the Muslims looking to revelation and the Communists looking  to reason, the ideologies it would seem to very much contradict.   But, these two seem to be strange bedfellows, as both are totalitarianistic. Here can be their unity!

The American experiment in democracy was very much founded on the Christian faith.  In the book, The Princeton Theology, edited by David F. Wells the first article is called, “Introduction: Reformed and American,” Mars den states that:

…Reformed orthodoxy was retained in most of New England pulpits for a least a century and a half, to the time of the revolution. Puritans were also characterized by intense piety, often keeping close records of their spiritual health.  Moreover, New England’s Puritans were America’s most successful Reformed culture builders. Virtually free from outside control during their first half century, they built the closest thing humanly possible to their conception of a biblical kingdom. The impressive effort had a lasting impact on the ideals of American civilization. 

2 Timothy 3:1 & 7c states: But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come: For men will be lovers of themselves…ever learning, but never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.” In the midst  of all this there is being created real destabilization and confusion all over the land, as the Bible points to this as it says in I Corinthians 14:33 that “God is not the author of confusion but of peace…”  The ethical standards in our society are a mass of confusion from progressive thinking, when we leave the guidance of  God’s word, the Bible, in  education. 

Isn’t it sad that schools teachers can have Darwin’s The Origin of the Species on their desk, even have the Koran on their desk, but not the Bible because some might be offended by it? Teachers have lost their jobs because they had the Bible on their desks. Destabilization points to an event that causes a loss of equilibrium, and our society is feeling this as forces are seeking to destroy our culture to replace it with something other than the Judeo-Christian.

This foundation was important, and America developed to a great extent from this influence. Rousas Rushdooney, in the excellent book about American Education from the earliest day up to 1963 called The Messianic Character of American Education, (1963-Ross Publishers, pp 329-330) presents an excellent understanding of the way education was in early America on up to the beginning of 1960s. One section is very pointed to what the education in America was before we moved to state sponsored schooling, as Rushdooney wrote:

An able system of common schools provided universal education before state control existed.  A treatise written in 1800 at the request of Thomas Jefferson gives a telling account, not of mere literacy, but literate capability, of America: ‘Most young Americans…can read, write, and cipher. Not more than four in a thousand are unable to write legibly-even neatly; while in Spain, Portugal, Italy, only a sixth of the population can read; in Germany, even in France, not more than a third; in Poland, about two men in a hundred, and in Russia not one in two hundred.

England, Holland, the Protestant Cantons of Switzerland, more nearly approach the standard of the United States, because in those countries the Bible is read; it is  considered the duty to read it to the children; and in that form of religion the sermons and liturgies in the language of the people tend to increase and formulate ideas of responsibility…’” (Dupont de Nemours, National Education in the United States of America, by Dupont de        Nemours, pp3-5, Newark, Delaware- University of Delaware Press, 1923)

In an article by Leon Puissegur in Freedom Outpost,“Education in the United States Going Communist,” July 28, 2015 he observed Senate Bill S1177 is short-titled the Every Child Achieves Act.  It dumbs down the educational system to ensure that all children read at the same level, do math at the same level, do science at the same level—the list goes on. It placed our children in schools under a “national” policy that has seemed to set up something very similar to a Communist-style type of education which makes the children virtual slaves to the government under national policy.  It has been entitled “Every Child Achieves Act,” which sounds good, but it actually hurts rather than helps.

The study of history is vital in education in our land, but in schools today some curriculums are electing to “begin” the History of the United States in 1865, rather than from the beginning. This is done to redefine what our nation became. In some books, they show that our revolution against the tyranny of the English King was an act of treason and should not be celebrated. That is not what our nation did, but that is what some “new” books are telling out children; they also claim that Muslims have done more for our nation than is true. It is a near complete revision of our nation’s history, and “WE THE PEOPLE” sit by like the Jewish people did under Adolf Hitler or and Joseph Stalin and watch as our nation is being destroyed by our own educational systems.

Puissegur asked in the article:  “Isn’t it amazing that those whom many people consider great leaders (Reagan, Bush, Clinton, and Obama) have helped bring this form of Communism to our very schools. Is it no wonder that our children are not moving ahead? Why should our nation ‘fit’ into the world’s ideas?” He went on to observe that: “Our nation has never ‘fit’ into any nation’s ideas; we were our own people, and now it seems as though we have lost our way in what our nation stands for. We allow programs such as this to continue while our politicians in Washington, D.C., progress us into a very left-leaning society—one where there will only be the elite and the poor.”

We live in a day when the call should not be “Cancel our culture,” but it should be one where we more fully anchor ourselves to what historically has been the basis of our culture, the Judeo-Christian foundation. C.S. Lewis, a great Christian author, said: “When training beats education civilization dies.” Training fades, but real education carries on, and in Christ leads to true freedom. Christ said, as  recorded in John 8:32 that “Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.

This freedom is the product of our Judeo-Christian culture, so let us wake and change the educational patterns in our land!